When is the “great” getaway?

Gatwick – there will be further flight delays due to the drone-flying issue

Apparently yesterday was the day for the great getaway if you lived in Wales. That is according to Inrix – as reported by the BBC but not the company itself – which is a research company analysing data from road sensors, and from vehicles.

The airline Emirates says that is Friday. The RAC thinks Thursday and Friday will be the busiest days but still says busy traffic on Saturday. ABTA says that Friday will be the busiest day. Gatwick’s busiest day will be Sunday when 73,000 will fly out.

I bet Gatwick is happy it isn’t today given the disruption. Someone operating drones brought the airport to a halt and, as at 9.15 this morning, it still hasn’t re-opened making life difficult for passengers, those working at the airport and airports throughout Europe where the knock-on is affecting them.

Some 4.7 million of are expected to travel by plane over the Christmas period. As usual hot places are where we are heading to. British Airways says that New York and Geneva are the long-haul and short-haul key spots but then they don’t fly with any great capacity to many mass market tourist destinations. Elsewhere, the Canary Islands are the most popular short-haul destination.

The busiest airport will be Gatwick from where 2.9 million people will fly into or out of the airport meaning just over 61% of us use that one airport for Christmas travel. That shows how important it is and why the drone flying idiots should be caught and dealt with as soon as possible. Manchester Airport hasn’t announced how many passengers it is expecting other than to say it expects about 100,000 more than last year. In December 2017, 1.8 million passengers went through the airport. Over half a million of us will leave from Stansted and some 375,000 from Luton. Bristol and Edinburgh will both see over a quarter of a million people fly.

Wherever you are going – and particularly those using Gatwick – good luck!